Guild Wars 2

I’m gonna say this now so you know where I’m coming from, the Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO, it’s not something that can’t be fixed, and its not a problem with questing on a fundamental level, it’s a problem with the implementation of a lot of features and I think it can be “fixed” without changing the fundamental ways in which the game plays. Please read my entire post before taking it at face value and misunderstanding my point.

I am a “questing enthusiast” (take that for what you will) and I mostly play MMOs for the questing and dungeons, the rest doesn’t interest me more than as a casual endeavour and as such I will only be talking about questing (dungeons seem mostly fine, although I do disagree with the removal of the trinity) and why it is such a poor experience for avid questers, keep in mind that while everything I say is very much my opinion I have tried to be as absolutely objective as I can.

before anybody brings up the “go play a different game then” argument I will state that I already do this (I play TSW mainly, best questing as far as I’m concerned) and the reason I post this is because I see a lot of potential in the questing of GW2 and would very much like to see it fulfil that potential. another argument I have no doubt will crop up is the “it’s not bad it’s different” to which I say poppykitten, I understand the difference between bad and different and this isn’t bad because it’s different, it’s bad because of the way many features have been implemented.

before I get to the meat of my post I want to clarify a few things that I’ll be talking about. when I use the term “immersion” I’m not JUST talking about my character in the game world, I am also talking in the sense that I as a player am suspending the idea that I am just grinding things for levels/whatever, keep in mind that this is the primary goal of questing, the difference between questing and grinding is a slim one and revolves mostly around the concept of presentation, dressing up the grind so that it doesn’t seem like a grind, it’s the same as how every quest at a base level is just a fetch quest or some variant, there is nothing wrong with that because that’s just what questing is, the problem arises from how GW2 fails to accomplish this (I’ll get to that later though).

when I talk about rewards I’m not talking exclusively about gear, gold or shines in general, I’m talking about what I get for doing something, think of it like a spectrum, on one end you have positive rewards, the kind we are used to getting in most MMOs, but on the other end we have negative rewards, where we are punished to some degree for doing something, usually not intentionally punished but still suffer some negative consequence for our actions, in the middle we have null rewards, something that I think GW2 needs to aim for due to the experience centric gameplay.

which brings me to my final clarification, when I talk about exp I mean the points you get for levels, when I talk about experience I am talking about the actual experience of doing something, this is what GW2 has been marketed as, a game where you do things because you enjoy doing them. on a side note I’m going to attempt to stay away from the term “fun” because it is so horribly vague and varies so much from person to person, I will instead be using the term “enjoyment/enjoyable/ect.” to mean a positive experience.

now we get to the bread and butter of this post (sorry about all the sprinkles, I just want to minimise misunderstandings as much as I can :] which also reminds me, if you haven’t already you should try “fairy bread”, it’s bread with butter and sprinkles), I’l start with the worst offender; heart quests.

HEART QUESTS: these little buggers are not only the driving force behind quest, but also one of the most immersion breaking. when i say driving force i mean that while one their own they may not be the majority of quests (once you factor in events that is) but they certainly steer the quester around the area, and are what questers do between events, sadly there is only a few in each area but I think with the frequency of events it’s not too much of an issue.

the real issue is how they are presented to the player. the way they appear on your screen when you get in the general area is fine if your just doing them to get to the next thing (in a way grinding them) but if you actually want to enjoy questing I find these to be massive inhibitors. they break immersion in both ways, as a character in the world I have no way of knowing these things without talking to the quest giver, and as a player it breaks down the quest into a “go here do that for exp”, it negates any sense of presentation, sure I have the option of talking to a quest giver before doing it but because I already know the objective and details it becomes something I do just to tick off a box in my head, again devaluing it into nothing more than a set of objectives I need to do in order to progress, it still negates the sense of questing and makes it feel like a grind.

the solution that I would recommend wouldn’t drastically change anything and I believe it would make these a much better part of the questing experience, simply add in the option to hide the objective until you have spoken to the quest giver, still have it track your progress but don’t show the quest in the quest log until we speak to the quest giver, this brings back immersion as both a character and as a player while not impacting those that like it the way it is.

PROGRESSION: this is more of a category of issues, so I’ll break it down into sub issues. the things with the progression in GW2 is that for questers it’s off, once I’ve done the quests in an area I am still several levels under the next natural progression (by natural progression I mean the next level bracket area that leads on from the previous one, sort of how a sylvari will go from caledon forest to brisban wild lands), this give me two options, both equally bad.

my first option is to do all the areas exploration, vistas and PoI, this ruins my immersion as a player because I’m only doing these to get levels, thus I’m grinding so that I can continue questing, but that’s not the worst part. the worst part is what ramifications forced exploration has for the nicely crafted world. when exploration is mandatory and you are only doing it for levels it becomes a basic “go here do this” objective, the then turns the area between the objectives into a travel zone (at least in the mind of the players) which in turn devalues the world space that the devs have put so much effort into crafting well, but again, this is only an issue of you are being forced to do it, if you enjoy exploration and are exploring because you want to this is a non-issue.

the second option is to go to another level appropriate zone and quest there, but this breaks my immersion not only as a player but also as a character, it has been put to me that it makes sense to kill weaker guys in order to get stronger, and that it does, but it doesn’t make sense that after looking at the guys in the next zone my character up and decided to travel all the way to the shiver peaks and bash some of those guys around to get stronger. as a player it’s even worse because now I’m not questing because I enjoy it, I’m now questing because I need the levels it provides, now any notion that I was questing rather than grinding has gone out the window.

It’s at this point that I want to talk about rewards. my reward for doing the quests in an area is to go do something I don’t want to do just for the exp OR go and grind quests in a way i don’t want to for exp, basically my reward for questing is a negative reward of having to grind in order to keep questing, you see, my reward for questing is grinding and my reward for grinding is questing, it’s a loop that gets repeated until I am XX level and no longer have to worry about being levelled for the next area. what SHOULD be happening is a null reward, that’s how an experience centric game should work, my reward for questing at the very least should be the ability to continue questing, right now that isn’t the case.

the solution for this isn’t an easy one I suspect because of how level distribution has been done, but I’ll say this, for a quester being over-leveled is better than being under-leveled, particularly in this game where we get downscaled (great feature BTW) for the area, so IMO the best solution is ensuring that after completing all heart quests and a fair few events that the player is levelled enough to proceed to their natural progression at the least, this can be accomplished by raising the exp gain to the appropriate level, the problem with this is that it means those who enjoy multiple activities will over level the content even faster (but again if they are doing it because they enjoy it this should;t be too much of an issue) and more importantly, those that think max level should take a longer time will find that it takes not much time at all, there are two ways to offset this, one is to change the level progression of the areas so that you aren’t levelling faster you just don’t need the levels as fast, the other is to raise the level cap with a future expansion and offset it after the fact, the former is probably the better although I doubt you have the resources to accomplish it or at the very least have large technical barriers that would stop you, the latter would be much more reasonable and would achieve a similar effect, at the expense of faster progression to level cap in the short term (although since this game doesn’t revolve around the idea of reaching level cap and then getting end game i think this is a minor issue).

Another issue that arises from the progression is with EVENTS; I like events and the way they are presented is fine (although the way they pop up is a little immersion breaking, I think it’s offset mostly by how evident it is when you get to the location, and they tend to be the kinds of things where word would travel) the problem is that they are repetitive as all hell, you DO have the option to not do them (which IMO would be the ideal fix for their repetitiveness atm) but that becomes a non-option of sorts due to the progression, I feel like I can’t afford to miss them because if I do I’ll be forced to grind out the exp later anyway, this has a double effect of making the event in question seem like a grind anyway and also breaks character immersion in a lot of cases due to the repetitiveness. over time I suspect they’ll add more events and tweak the chances of them happening to lessen the repeat performances we see a little bit, but until then this remains an issue for questers.

that’s really the big issues, I could go on all day with petty nitpicks but that would be unproductive and tedious, so I’ll spare you the boredom ;]

now you need to look at this in perspective, these issues in the grand scheme are probably not that important at all, but as far as questing goes these have a large impact on how enjoyable someones questing experience will be. I’ve tried to provide accurate and proper feedback rather than just complain about things, and I’ve tried to offer possible solutions, I’m not gonna bother with an empty “I’ll leave” threat because they are childish and stupid, I’ll probably keep playing this game every now and then regardless but I still want to see the game fill its potential. I apologise for what I’m sure is repulsive grammar and off key spelling, I’m more concerned with whether or not I got my point across accurately than whether or not the dictionary still wants to be my friend (it doesn’t). Pleas do reply with your own thoughts on the questing in GW2, I am genuinely interested in what other people think of it (no that was not sarcasm).

P.S. wall’o’text apparently

Zoridium JackL.7463:

I’m gonna say this now so you know where I’m coming from, the Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO,

i find exploration, DE’s, with sprinkles of personal story and hearts to be the best leveling experience ive ever had in an MMO. thats my opinion. we’ll all have different ones. you mention grinding 10 times in your post, and im not sure what youre talking about. i find myself flying through the levels, hardly noticing them. im so immersed in the world, which actually feels alive with events and chatter.

i actually bought GW2 for the pvp, but i find myself puttin off tpvp and WvW like a delicious piece of cake saved for last. as a result, im spending more time in PVE, which turned out to be some of the best ive experienced, even outside of MMO’s.

if i could ask for two improvements:
- a level 80 should not be 3-shotting things when leveled down; i want to go back and enjoy the low level world, i want to be challenged by it. nerf down leveling
- large DE events need to scale better in order to be more challenging for large groups, in addition to making world boss encounters more exciting and challenging.

just to clarify I’m not talking about quest-hubs or anything like that, I’m glad to do away with that.

Ok.. I’m gonna come back and prolly edit this more indepth, once I have the time to read your walls of text ~ but to address the "face value" of the topic and opening statement you make.

~ Killing mobs via quests and NOT getting rewarded in a dynamic fashion.. just seems out of date and grindish.

In a standard MMO, you run around.. explore, find harvesting nodes, ect.. but really, killing ANYTHING is pretty pointless, UNTIL you’ve made sure to go to the nearest towns/camps/cities to pick up all the "kill/collect quests".

IE:
I’m out "exploring" trying to find BAMs or just looking around for crafting nodes... all the while, I’m killing stuff.

Then, I come back to town or find a new town.. filled with NPC’s asking me to go kill bears or collect an oddly specific number of their "arses".

The first thought in my mind.. WTF!? ~ I just spent 1-2 hours exploring that zone w/bears.. killing tons of them, now you want me to go back?

To be fair tho, standard quest games like TSW have been in development for a while *(prior to GW2 launch).. so there’s no way they really could’ve made their game as "fluid" as GW2 anyways.

Dynamic > Static
*Anyday*

nerva.7940:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

I’m gonna say this now so you know where I’m coming from, the Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO,

i find exploration, DE’s, with sprinkles of personal story and hearts to be the best leveling experience ive ever had in an MMO.

you’re missing the point, you’re an explorer, you enjoy exploring and doing events along the way, I enjoy questing and exploring along the way, you can stay zone appropriate level and I can’t because exploration is a requirement with questing being practically optional. shouldn’t both ways of play be supported? shouldn’t people interested in questing be primarily able to quest?

Zoridium JackL.7463:

nerva.7940:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

I’m gonna say this now so you know where I’m coming from, the Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO,

i find exploration, DE’s, with sprinkles of personal story and hearts to be the best leveling experience ive ever had in an MMO.

you’re missing the point, you’re an explorer, you enjoy exploring and doing events along the way, I enjoy questing and exploring along the way, you can stay zone appropriate level and I can’t because exploration is a requirement with questing being practically optional. shouldn’t both ways of play be supported? shouldn’t people interested in questing be primarily able to quest?

Seems you’re expecting something from GW2 that they’ve addressed as something they’ll NEVER support.

IE: Grinding quests.

So from that point of view.. I think you’re right, GW2 does do “Quests” poorly.. mainly because it’s not of any interest to them, in fact something they want to avoid.

I feel I should reference the GW2 Manifesto ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtGxVj3msM

That video is pure sales hype.

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

nerva.7940:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

I’m gonna say this now so you know where I’m coming from, the Questing in GW2 is flat out the worst questing I have personally ever seen in an MMO,

i find exploration, DE’s, with sprinkles of personal story and hearts to be the best leveling experience ive ever had in an MMO.

you’re missing the point, you’re an explorer, you enjoy exploring and doing events along the way, I enjoy questing and exploring along the way, you can stay zone appropriate level and I can’t because exploration is a requirement with questing being practically optional. shouldn’t both ways of play be supported? shouldn’t people interested in questing be primarily able to quest?

Seems you’re expecting something from GW2 that they’ve addressed as something they’ll NEVER support.

IE: Grinding quests.

So from that point of view.. I think you’re right, GW2 does do “Quests” poorly.. mainly because it’s not of any interest to them, in fact something they want to avoid.

I feel I should reference the GW2 Manifesto ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtGxVj3msM

firstly, I laughed at all the stuff in that video that is nowhere near true of the game, seriously, the best part was when she mentioned bosses spawning ten minutes after you kill them, like that totally never happens in GW2 (that was sarcasm).

secondly, I’m talking about questing and not grinding, at the moment I can’t quest without the game making me grind, I don’t want to grind quests for exp, I want to quest because I enjoy questing in and of itself, but no matter how hard I try the game keeps telling me that I’m only allowed to grind things I don;’t enjoy doing.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

AlexanderFaust.4518:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

Not an opinion unfortunately.

What they describe in the videos and what we actually have are 2 very different things. GW2 follows the same structure as every other mmo, they just changed up the interface a little and virtually removed character progression.

Questing is actually worse than other mmos imo as there is no presentation at all. The video is the very definition of sales hype.

AlexanderFaust.4518:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

they said they didn’t want typical quests or grinding, well grats ANet, what you’ve given me is VERY typical quests with nothing but grind.

do you see what I’m saying? there questing is not only bad, but goes completely against there entire design philosophy. if their game was even half like that manifesto makes out it would be a GREAT questing experience, sadly it’s nothing but unfulfilled potential atm.

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

they said they didn’t want typical quests or grinding, well grats ANet, what you’ve given me is VERY typical quests with nothing but grind.

do you see what I’m saying? there questing is not only bad, but goes completely against there entire design philosophy. if their game was even half like that manifesto makes out it would be a GREAT questing experience, sadly it’s nothing but unfulfilled potential atm.

Guess we can agree to disagree then.

I completely, and totally agree.

It’s all in the presentation. You can make microwave dinners look appealing if you put them on a plate, out a parsley sprig on the side, and serve it with wine.

The way the quests are presented to me in this game is one of the things I dislike most about it. I honestly, truely, don’t care about killing endless waves of anything. The fighting aspect amounts to glorified button mashing so, for me it’s all about the story, the immersion.

I want to play in a fantasy world that feels dynamic and alive. I want to feel like when I go explore the world, I’m rewarded by finding amazing things to do and see. I don’t care about XP, or gear. I just want to experience cool stories.

In GW2, the presentation of the stories are like trying to read a novel on Twitter. The game is basically a series of spoilers.

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

they said they didn’t want typical quests or grinding, well grats ANet, what you’ve given me is VERY typical quests with nothing but grind.

do you see what I’m saying? there questing is not only bad, but goes completely against there entire design philosophy. if their game was even half like that manifesto makes out it would be a GREAT questing experience, sadly it’s nothing but unfulfilled potential atm.

Guess we can agree to disagree then.

if by disagree you mean you have absolutely no grasp of the point I’m trying to make and fail to understand that there is actually a difference between questing and grinding and that GW2 has completely failed to distinguish between the two than yes, we can agree on that.

Already said I don’t have the time to read your “walls of txt”.
So yea.. pretty much

I just took your topic at face value

If you want people to reply in more detail, make a youtube vid or something.

I was gonna make it a youtube vid, but then I remembered that my rambling is bad enough in text form, in video form I would go on for hours :]

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

AlexanderFaust.4518:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

That video is pure sales hype.

Grats on having an opinion :P
*The video still explains the “direction” ANet wanted to take GW2 *(Avoiding typical MMO structure) IE: No typical quests.

they said they didn’t want typical quests or grinding, well grats ANet, what you’ve given me is VERY typical quests with nothing but grind.

do you see what I’m saying? there questing is not only bad, but goes completely against there entire design philosophy. if their game was even half like that manifesto makes out it would be a GREAT questing experience, sadly it’s nothing but unfulfilled potential atm.

Guess we can agree to disagree then.

if by disagree you mean you have absolutely no grasp of the point I’m trying to make and fail to understand that there is actually a difference between questing and grinding and that GW2 has completely failed to distinguish between the two than yes, we can agree on that.

Already said I don’t have the time to read your “walls of txt”.
So yea.. pretty much

I just took your topic at face value

If you want people to reply in more detail, make a youtube vid or something.

I was gonna make it a youtube vid, but then I remembered that my rambling is bad enough in text form, in video form I would go on for hours :]

lol, I sort of have the same problem.. but I’m also somewhat of a perfectionist.. so my vids always end up 5-8 mins long *(due to rageing at myself).

Though, I’m curious what the rules on posting private links to youtube from these forums are?

any bannable offenses?

Questing in GW2 is probably one of the best aspect of the game.
I can almost guarantee that you will see this in games/mmo’s moving forward.

Its a great and refreshing change for the better as far as gaming goes.

Echo.7634:

Questing in GW2 is probably one of the best aspect of the game.
I can almost guarantee that you will see this in games/mmo’s moving forward.

Its a great and refreshing change for the better as far as gaming goes.

Honestly.. check out the Wildstar on the Gametrailers site.
*(another NC Soft game).

Honestly.. check out the Wildstar on the Gametrailers site.
*(another NC Soft game).They did a 4-5 part walkthrough of the game.. and it’s shaping up to be an evolution to the concepts brought to us via Guild Wars 2.

Echo.7634:

Questing in GW2 is probably one of the best aspect of the game.
I can almost guarantee that you will see this in games/mmo’s moving forward.

Its a great and refreshing change for the better as far as gaming goes.

hahahahahahaha, thanks, needed a good laugh.

in the event that you weren’t kidding, would you mind explaining why? as far as I’ve seen most of the good things about it (and there are several) are trumped by the shortcomings that serve only to cheapen the experience. the most refreshing part of it is the lack of quest hubs (seen it done before, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasant) and to a degree events (although events in and of themselves have some issues and the whole idea of them has been done before except not to such a large degree).

Zoridium JackL.7463:

Echo.7634:

Questing in GW2 is probably one of the best aspect of the game.
I can almost guarantee that you will see this in games/mmo’s moving forward.

Its a great and refreshing change for the better as far as gaming goes.

hahahahahahaha, thanks, needed a good laugh.

in the event that you weren’t kidding, would you mind explaining why? as far as I’ve seen most of the good things about it (and there are several) are trumped by the shortcomings that serve only to cheapen the experience. the most refreshing part of it is the lack of quest hubs (seen it done before, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasant) and to a degree events (although events in and of themselves have some issues and the whole idea of them has been done before except not to such a large degree).

Dude… why be rude?

Odds are he likes it for the exact same reason most everyone else does.
Exploration > Grind

IE: I FIND quests/events rather than some random NPC in a town telling me where to go and what to kill.

If I don’t like events in a certain area.. then I just move on.. and even at lv80 the events in another starting zone *(different from my Race) will still be a challenge.

Not only does GW2 have Exploration > Grind, but with DE’s we also get varied content along with NO level restrictions

~ just my 2 cents ~

no level restrictions? maybe when you get to 80 but up until then as a quester I have no choice but to grind, you see, if you’re into exploration as your primary activity than GW2 is great, but if you want questing (not grinding, there is a difference) to be your main focus than you are kitten out of luck, you HAVE to grind to experience the content you enjoy.

exploration is indeed better than grind, but for some people exploration IS a grind because they are only doing it to get levels so they can keep doing the things they actually enjoy.

again, I’m not asking for quest hubs, I like the quests being scattered around the area the way they are, I have ZERO issue with that, my problem is that once I’ve done the quests in an are I am not allowed to move on without grinding, it’s not actually possible to do as a quester.

Zoridium JackL.7463:

no level restrictions? maybe when you get to 80 but up until then as a quester I have no choice but to grind, you see, if you’re into exploration as your primary activity than GW2 is great, but if you want questing (not grinding, there is a difference) to be your main focus than you are kitten out of luck, you HAVE to grind to experience the content you enjoy.

exploration is indeed better than grind, but for some people exploration IS a grind because they are only doing it to get levels so they can keep doing the things they actually enjoy.

again, I’m not asking for quest hubs, I like the quests being scattered around the area the way they are, I have ZERO issue with that, my problem is that once I’ve done the quests in an are I am not allowed to move on without grinding, it’s not actually possible to do as a quester.

I still don’t understand what you’re issue is..

lol, not saying that in a negative way ~ you’re just not making any sense.

You say you can NOT move on without grinding.. why?

What’s stopping you?

You realize that leveling in GW2 is pretty trivial right?
IE: getting to lv80 in 3 days just by doing zone completion.

Are you wanting dailies? or… what? o.O

I understand what yer saying … I don’t agree. BUT, I am an explorer first and foremost and exploration is what I enjoy doing, so if I don’t hit that minimum level I need to be in order to move on to the next zone in the human kingdoms, I’ll trek on over to the Norn lands and explore there, do some quests, and get my levels up … probably well past what I need because I’ll get sucked into the stories in the Norn lands. And, I build this mentality into my character – she is a ravenous explorer, she doesn’t care about politics, or wars, and barely cares about dragons … she just wants to see the world.

If you are roleplaying, and aren’t playin’ a character what can get away with that, you might be in a bit of a bind; because you can find yourself behind the curve if you don’t scrape a map clean, gather a bunch, hit the puzzles, craft, do some pvp, or whatever else. If you mostly move from quest to quest, you will miss a lot of the adventures off the beaten path and the xp that goes with them. And there are adventures off the beaten path; just like there are treasures, puzzles, interestin’ places and more …

Here’s the problem … the way you play isn’t compatible with my software, and I think the same goes for the game designers … they weren’t thinking about you when they made the game … they were thinking about me. So, my advice, if you can find an In Character reason to get your character out into other race zones, do that and you’ll make up the difference … once you clear your level appropos zone, doing the same zone in the Charr lands won’t feel weak or samey – each culture feels distinct in a lot of ways.

the condescending tone, the same complaint and the huge walls of text probably implies you are that guy from that other huge thread about the same thing, just with a new identity. What happened, got blocked for insulting everyone that disagreed with you at last?

Hey Zoridium guy, you wrote all that BS just to say “I want to talk to npcs to get quests”. So go talk to them, whats keeping you? You dont like the quests on your screen? disable them.

I would like some gear reward too from them but, hey, this is not enough to call questing “the worse”. Actually its the best form and I wonder why anyone before them didn’t apply it.

Manufacturing verbal arguments, just to attack a system that lets EVERYONE play like they want, is so out of fashion. Get real.

I’m with the OP and I feel what he says.

@AlexanderFaust: From the above responses, you are perhaps the only one who understood more than the rest what the OP is trying to say but, perhaps you should take the time to read OP’s wall of text now instead of being on constant defensive mode; as from what I can see, you are misunderstanding to a small extent what the OP is trying to convey. The rest just completely misunderstood.

For one, probably most people were tagged with a too typical MMO mindset that questing = grinding. Thats what the OP tried to differentiate when he mentioned ‘immersion’. For what Anet branded their game to be, questing is supposed to make you feel part of the game. But atm, it is not. Its just a source of experience grind with very little ‘immersion’ to why you are doing that heart quest. You’d just press ‘M’, look for empty heart shapes, run there and complete it for exp and move on. That’s just exp grinding rebranded, not exactly ‘redefined’ or revolutionary. And when you outleveled the zone, like what the OP said, you’d be required to move to different same level zone to grind those empty hearts out so that you can move to a higher level zone. This my friend, if not a grind, what is?

For those who prefers exploration first and questing second, perhaps you’d face lesser problem of outleveling your zone, which I’d say is a success of Anet’s side.

But for those (including me), who prefers questing first and exploration second, too often we’d outlevel our zone (at least for the starter zones) and being forced to explore the whole of the map or move to another starter zone. While you may think that this is Anet’s intention for players to ‘immerse’ themselves in this beautifully crafted world, take a seat and try running the game a second time. By the second time, no I wouldn’t want to be forced to explore vistas and POI that I have already did with my main character; though I still enjoy completing objectives required in a quest.

OP’s proposed solution seemed quite thought out and agree completely.

I think it’s fairly obvious that this isn’t the game for questing enthusiasts.

I enjoy questing myself, but I love what they did with the heart quests. I know there’s also a great deal of DEs that I skipped (and am probably better off having done so for the time being, because so many are bugged).

After the failfest that was TOR, I’m unphased by the questing in this game. The dungeons on the other hand…

Jack of Tears.9458:

the way you play isn’t compatible with my software,

that isn’t true in the slightest, our ways of play are very compatible, questing and exploration go hand in hand, particularly when you aren’t using quest hubs as means for quest giving, I’m not asking the game to be stripped of exploration, I’m just asking that I not be FORCED to do it, I think it not only cheapens the exploration but has severe impacts on my questing, it’s odd how such small details and implementations can cause two usually hand in hand play styles to be so different, the point is that if you are exploration driving with a touch of questing you;ll find few games better, but if you’re questing driven with little-no added exploration on the side than you have serious issues with being unable to progress by any means other than grinding.

as I said, I think the questing in GW2 has loads of potential, and believe it or not it’s close-ish to my cup of tea, it’s just these few minor major things that need to be tweaked in order to remove the grind, it would have no impact on your way of playing while also making the questing for people who mainly quest a thousand times better.

Algreg.3629:

the condescending tone, the same complaint and the huge walls of text probably implies you are that guy from that other huge thread about the same thing, just with a new identity. What happened, got blocked for insulting everyone that disagreed with you at last?

sorry to disappoint but I’ve never posted under a different name, if I sound condescending than it’s because you’re reading that into the post yourself (try reading it in a more light hearted kind of tone, that might sound a little closer), I don’t insult people for having a different opinion and if they disagree I try and refute their points with actual thinking and productive discussion.

Algomyth.5479:

Hey Zoridium guy, you wrote all that BS just to say “I want to talk to npcs to get quests”. So go talk to them, whats keeping you? You dont like the quests on your screen? disable them.

mind telling me how to disable the quests on my screen, i tried to find an option but couldn’t see one, also that’s one paragraph of the post, mind reading the whole thing before giving such a half assed and unhelpful reply.

Algomyth.5479:

I would like some gear reward too from them but, hey, this is not enough to call questing “the worse”. Actually its the best form and I wonder why anyone before them didn’t apply it.

not talking about gear rewards, I did actual make a note that i wasn’t talking about gear rewards, and that’s not why I called it the worst (I like the way gear is done in this game, for the most part anyway), I called it the worst because it fails to do what questing should, hide the grind, but in GW2 they are forcing questers to grind in order to keep questing, it defeats the purpose of disguising grinds as quests, you might as well not have quests and just call them “grind points”.

Algomyth.5479:

Manufacturing verbal arguments, just to attack a system that lets EVERYONE play like they want, is so out of fashion. Get real.

doesn’t let me play how I want, not unless I grind more than I quest (which isn’t an exaggeration, I spend as much if not more time grinding levels to progress than I do questing, play how I want mykitten , fashion? out of? I don’t give a single flying kitten what’s in fashion, my post was about trying to provide feedback to the devs as best I could, and if you ask a dev weather or not feedback is in fashion I guarantee you that they’ll say “I don’t know if it’s in fashion but I want it” because as a game dev it’s the most useful thing a player can give you (well, that and money, but I’m giving them both).

Strifer.3507:

For what Anet branded their game to be, questing is supposed to make you feel part of the game. But atm, it is not. Its just a source of experience grind with very little ‘immersion’ to why you are doing that heart quest. You’d just press ‘M’, look for empty heart shapes, run there and complete it for exp and move on.

If you take the time to talk to the heart quest giver, they’ll fill in all the blanks about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

“If you take the time to talk to the heart quest giver, they’ll fill in all the blanks about why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

sadly it’s not quite that simple, once the immersion is broken it is very hard to re-establish it, especially with such basic quest giver dialogue.

@OP, so you want heart quests to give triple the XP that they give now so you can move on to the next map without doing anything other than heart quests, or you want triple the heart quests so you can run around ticking them off before moving to the next map?

You know, originally those hearts weren’t even there, people had to actually explore to find favor NPCs and events. They were added in later because people wanted some sort of “direction”.

"

@OP, so you want heart quests to give triple the XP that they give now so you can move on to the next map without doing anything other than heart quests, or you want triple the heart quests so you can run around ticking them off before moving to the next map?

You know, originally those hearts weren’t even there, people had to actually explore to find favor NPCs and events. They were added in later because people wanted some sort of “direction”."

honestly? no, I don’t want more exp, I just want to continue questing, the problem for me is that I can’t think of any way to allow continuous questing without an exp boost unless they were to reformat the level brackets of the entire game.

an interesting Idea was combining the starting zones for sylvari and the little guys because they are so close together, it could work if they gave a better connection between the sylvari and the inquisitors, and the little guys with the nightmare court, and then you could feed brisban wildlands into the kessex hills a little more smoothly, but the issue there is that it only alleviates the issue for those two races for those few levels, the rest of the map doesn’t allow for such zone grouping without bracket changing.

the idea behind the grouping though is that those that get zone completion don’t have to do the other zone but those that want to quest get twice as many heart quests/events over a larger area so they won’t have any trouble leveling for the next zone, the real issue is the tie in because you need to conserve the immersion to avoid the issue we already have, again the caledon forrest and metrica province are prime examples, they sit so close together yet going from one to the other doesn’t work as a natural progression without some heavy reasoning on the part of the player, and even then it still only applies for a couple zones,

ultimately I’d rather see more heart quests and have them be repeatable rather than increasing the exp hand out, but since this game isn’t targeted at the questing audience I hardly expect them to put such time into questing content, exp point increase is just the most reasonable and easy way to make the questing progression flow from the development standpoint.

it’s not a matter of wanting more content or wanting to skip content, it’s a matter of wanting to experience the current questing content in reasonably immersive way without having to grind out a few levels every few quests.

Zoridium JackL.7463:

it’s not a matter of wanting more content or wanting to skip content, it’s a matter of wanting to experience the current questing content in reasonably immersive way without having to grind out a few levels every few quests.

It sounds like you are wanting a single player game, to be honest. One that progresses from point A to point B with no break in the storyline.

I’ve been having the opposite problem, I seem to be leveling up too fast. Literally everything you do in this game gives you XP. It’s hard to even walk 10 feet without getting XP from something. I got a few levels just from crafting. I dinged once from raising someone.

I’m not sure if you are using foods or potions, but those give you a pretty good boost. Might help you level a bit quicker to stay at level with the map.

I was sympathetic until you started HAHAHAing at someone who enjoys the questing in this game. Now its obvious your just a troll. Hearts are not quests at all. DE’s are the only quests in this game.

Hearts were only added as an after thought because players wanted a bit of guidance in the zone. So, really, the hearts are just map locations that reward a bit extra with extra effort. Dynamic Events are the primary quests in this game and they are the only part that should ever be expanded or worked on. Personally I find them bloody brilliant and is the first time I have felt a part of the game world in an MMO in years.

Hearts already perfectly serve their ONLY purpose which is to attract players to map locations where the REAL quests spawn: Dynamic Events.

"

I was sympathetic until you started HAHAHAing at someone who enjoys the questing in this game. Now its obvious your just a troll. Hearts are not quests at all. DE’s are the only quests in this game.

Hearts were only added as an after thought because players wanted a bit of guidance in the zone. So, really, the hearts are just map locations that reward a bit extra with extra effort. Dynamic Events are the primary quests in this game and they are the only part that should ever be expanded or worked on. Personally I find them bloody brilliant and is the first time I have felt a part of the game world in an MMO in years.

Hearts already perfectly serve their ONLY purpose which is to attract players to map locations where the REAL quests spawn: Dynamic Events."

not a troll, I just found it funny, I mean did you read his post? it basically equated to “is good because is good”, that is not what I call valid discussion, that is what I call pointless opinionating, and I’m still waiting for them to clarify their reasoning because seeing as how you missed the rest of that post I’ll explain that I did go on to be serious and ask him what his reasoning was, he was very vague about it in his original.

anyway, what you’re saying is I’m expected to just STAND AROUND doing nothing so that I can see the same quest I’ve already done several times pop up again? I’m sorry but not only is that grinding, but it’s BORING grinding on a new level, I’m sorry but heart quest fail at that goal as well, they fail to keep me occupied long enough to run (the same) events until I’m appropriately leveled, as I’ve said many a time, if your primary focus is questing than your kitten out of luck, events, while interesting, are just another way of being given a quest, and when it leaves questers out there floundering while they wait than I start to question there “bloody brilliance”.

so not only do hearts not make for good questing, but they completely fail as draws for questers to events, no matter how I look at the questing system it fails to offer a good experience for questers, sure if your focus is elsewhere and you have plenty of other things to do than the questing system couldn’t be better, but I don’t enjoy most any other feature in the game as a primary focus.

I don’t feel part of the game world, I couldn’t feel like part of the game world IF I TRIED (and I really really did, many times) between the constant forced grinding and constant removal of any immersion, I couldn’t go more than 30 seconds without being booted from the game world and any sense that I was a part of it. it’s really sad to me because I think that it’s such a great world to be immersed in and for me it looks like the games questing has fallen off a cliff not five meters from the finish line, the game comes so close to offering a great questing experience while still managing to fall so far into sub mediocrity (again, only as far as questing for questers is concerned)

Yeah totally disagree, but it’s a well-written post and I can understand where you’re coming from, even while I disagree.

But I have to say that I too find questing in GW2 about a million times more immersive this way than the usual quest dispenser method. It’s quest dispensers, quest hubs and quest “paths” that make the process completely mechanistic for me. For some reason, the orange pop-ups and map pop-ups denoting hearts and DEs don’t feel so mechanistic to me. Probably just some psychological difference.

But I certainly wouldn’t object to the option to have the on-screen and orange map pop-up infos turn-offable, for those who want that complete “fog of war”.

(Btw, if you’re heavily into discovering stuff for yourself, you do realize that the map icons can be turned off too? That way you have to actively hunt for POIs, hearts, talk to NPCs, etc., etc., etc.)

I think GW2 questing is great. I would say the thing that stands out to me the most is that it cuts down on running time. Running is the biggest time sink in MMOs. I am tired of running back and forth to quest givers just for the sake of picking up a quest or turning it in. Those days are gone. Thank you ArenaNet for removing the ridiculous amounts of running!

How do you think Marathon 2012 would work out as a console game? I am surprised EA Sports hasn’t created a series.

Stevoli.8795:

Zoridium JackL.7463:

it’s not a matter of wanting more content or wanting to skip content, it’s a matter of wanting to experience the current questing content in reasonably immersive way without having to grind out a few levels every few quests.

It sounds like you are wanting a single player game, to be honest. One that progresses from point A to point B with no break in the storyline.

I’ve been having the opposite problem, I seem to be leveling up too fast. Literally everything you do in this game gives you XP. It’s hard to even walk 10 feet without getting XP from something. I got a few levels just from crafting. I dinged once from raising someone.

I’m not sure if you are using foods or potions, but those give you a pretty good boost. Might help you level a bit quicker to stay at level with the map.

I’m not asking for a single player game, and believe it or not you don’t have to be a single player game to offer good questing (GASP), you see, I don’t get exp as often as you because I don’t enjoy doing a lot of those side things, I enjoy questing and sometimes casually detour into something along the way, but the bread and butter of my gameplay is questing, which sadly seems to be one of the things that doesn’t offer an aweful lot of exp thus causing all the progression issues that questers face.

I did try using exp boosters to offset the slow progression, but I still ended up under leveled for the next zone, not by as much, but still enough to make it less than worthwhile endevour :[.

JazzyJay.1367:

I think GW2 questing is great. I would say the thing that stands out to me the most is that it cuts down on running time. Running is the biggest time sink in MMOs. I am tired of running back and forth to quest givers just for the sake of picking up a quest or turning it in. Those days are gone. Thank you ArenaNet for removing the ridiculous amounts of running!

How do you think Marathon 2012 would work out as a console game? I am surprised EA Sports hasn’t created a series.

funnily that feature has been on its way out for years, it wasn’t ANets sole effort, but it’s good to see it go regardless, it’s the same issue as forced exploration, it just turns the world space into travel zones.

gurugeorge.9857:

Yeah totally disagree, but it’s a well-written post and I can understand where you’re coming from, even while I disagree.

But I have to say that I too find questing in GW2 about a million times more immersive this way than the usual quest dispenser method. It’s quest dispensers, quest hubs and quest “paths” that make the process completely mechanistic for me. For some reason, the orange pop-ups and map pop-ups denoting hearts and DEs don’t feel so mechanistic to me. Probably just some psychological difference.

But I certainly wouldn’t object to the option to have the on-screen and orange map pop-up infos turn-offable, for those who want that complete “fog of war”.

(Btw, if you’re heavily into discovering stuff for yourself, you do realize that the map icons can be turned off too? That way you have to actively hunt for POIs, hearts, talk to NPCs, etc., etc., etc.)

just to clarify, I’m not talking about quest hubs or anything like that, I’m glad to see them go and have been ever since MMOs started doing it, the whole “dispenser” thing as well, it’s just as bad to have your questgivers devolve into nothing more than a talking head that tells you what to do next, GW2 does do a good job of that to a degree (some of the questgiver dialogue can be pretty… cookie cutter), when I talk about paths or natural progressions I’m not talking about clear cut things like go from this questgiver to this questgiver ect., I’m talking more about as a character in the world I am traveling in this direction, because of both geographical location and level distribution, even hostile enemy type plays a role (like how I wouldn’t call the metrica province a natural progression for a ow level sylvari because of how it deviates so far from what makes sense for a sylvari to be doing in the world space), you know how some games at the higher levels have all the zones be disjointed so that you have to do a lot of travel to get to one another? it’s the opposite to that, zones that just naturally feed into each other without being devalued completely into “I’m this level so I should go quest in this area”, I hate that feeling it makes the zones feel so… grindy.

I also have no issue with how events are presented, it can be a little sketchy on immersion sometimes but as I said it tends to offset that itself, it’s one of the things that wasn’t PURE marketing hype, you really do get to watch some events unfold via the event system and the way they are presented works with that because they aren’t always things that have a quest giver at one end waiting to give you the go ahead, if they weren’t so repetitive and there was perhaps a more consistent actionable way to trigger them there wouldn’t be a such a problem with the sense that you are forced to grind them, but then again making them something that players can cause on a whim defeats the purpose of them to a degree (although most of them can to a degree be player initiated, they just depend on the player being somewhere when a set of conditions have been met, those ones tend to be my favorites).

whatever I say don’t misunderstand, there are many things ANet did RIGHT, there’s just some bad implementations that make for an overall bad experience despite the good parts, this is what I mean by potential, questing could be so great if it weren’t for these few major drawbacks.

You have a very well made point there but I like the way the game is now. You are a very conservative MMO player and I respect that, but GW2 is trying some new stuff and it’s completely natural that not everybody will enjoy it, specially the more conservatives.

I’ve read an article last week from a blogger that talked exactly about this questing hub mentality and how some veteran MMO players would find it hard to adapt to the new concept of dynamic events, which are the main source of XP in this game. He went from heart to heart completing them in an organic order without attending to events, exploring or crafting at all and he quickly found himself under leveled for the next heart he needed to go to.

Kudos to you for the very well written topic. But in my opinion GW2 is great the way it is.

Calavera.1086:

You have a very well made point there but I like the way the game is now. You are a very conservative MMO player and I respect that, but GW2 is trying some new stuff and it’s completely natural that not everybody will enjoy it, specially the more conservatives.

I’ve read an article last week from a blogger that talked exactly about this questing hub mentality and how some veteran MMO players would find it hard to adapt to the new concept of dynamic events, which are the main source of XP in this game. He went from heart to heart completing them in an organic order without attending to events, exploring or crafting at all and he quickly found himself under leveled for the next heart he needed to go to.

Kudos to you for the very well written topic. But in my opinion GW2 is great the way it is.

but i DO attend events (every single one that pops up, I make a point of it) I did do some exploring (nothing too out of the way mind you, but I definitely stopped to smell the roses on occasion) I’ll admit I don’t do a lot of crafting (doesn’t interest me in the slightest), either way I’m still underleveled as long as my focus is questing and not some other activity that I don’t enjoy.

and I am anything but conservative, I’m all for innovation and the like, and again I couldn’t care less for quest hubs, I think events are fine for the most part (they’re not what I take issue with) my problem is with the way the quest system as a whole fails to support itself, the event system for questers is let down by the off progression (for questers) and devolves into grinding, the event system only works if you have something to do between events while you wait for a new one to pop up, questers have nothing because heart quest fail in every respect.

First of all, I totally lost it at “Poppykitten” but anyway, back on topic.

Your opinion does matter and the Developers do read this kind of feedback. If there are things in the game that aren’t fun for you, then it’s perfectly fine to say hey this wasn’t fun. It’s even fine to say this is how I think it could be better.

Personally, for me, I found the questing to be a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. But I will say that some of the areas are a lot more fun than others. Some of the quests are really fun and some of them are just horrible grinding. For me, the good outweighed the bad.

It is indeed frustrating when dynamic events are bugged. The best thing to do when you come across them is to type /bug and report it. They do work on fixing issues and bugs in the game. As you might have noticed, they are doing a patch tonight to fix some of the bugs and problems in the game. It might address some of your issues.

That said, I hope you don’t give up on the game. And I also hope that you don’t still feel that your opinion doesn’t matter. Because even if not everyone agrees with you, it does matter what you think.

*edited for horrible grammar – ack

I couldn’t read that wall of text. More paragraph breaks. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying though since I would disagree 100%.

The “questing” leveling/xp system in GW2 is the best I’ve ever played. It’s so vastly superior to the refined quest hub system that exists in formula MMORPGs that there’s no contest.

Hub questing beats camp and grind from ancient times but that’s about it. It’s an incredibly boring and blatantly repetitive grind…it’s just a quest grind instead of a camp and grind.

Wow you had a lot on your mind.

Some games you walk into a town and every npc in there wants you to do something for them. Thankfully in this game your not crushed to death with quest at every turn.

I like questing in GW 2, out of box its great and it could be easly added too in future.

BTW, I’m not sure how long you hang out at each event area, but a majority of them seem to have multiple stages, followed by an escort mission that takes you to the next “quest” area. So really, each heart area can have up to 4 quests if you just hang out and watch the events unfold rather than running to the next heart.

On one of my alts I rushed through the starter area, going heart to heart completing them, and I was only level 12 by the time I finished the 1-15 area map. On another alt, I stopped and did each event, and the escorts missions, and ended up around level 20 by the time I finished the same map.

Voqar.2349:

I couldn’t read that wall of text. More paragraph breaks. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying though since I would disagree 100%.

The “questing” leveling/xp system in GW2 is the best I’ve ever played. It’s so vastly superior to the refined quest hub system that exists in formula MMORPGs that there’s no contest.

Hub questing beats camp and grind from ancient times but that’s about it. It’s an incredibly boring and blatantly repetitive grind…it’s just a quest grind instead of a camp and grind.

my wall’o’text look so much more formatted in notepad, but then the forums went and bunched it all up :[

anyway I will clarify (again) that I’m not talking about quest hubs, I like having the quests scattered around the zones, i didn’t dislike hubs but I much prefer getting out and about for quests.

johnnycosmic.9130:

Wow you had a lot on your mind.

Some games you walk into a town and every npc in there wants you to do something for them. Thankfully in this game your not crushed to death with quest at every turn.

I like questing in GW 2, out of box its great and it could be easly added too in future.

again, I’ve always liked non-hub questing.

Stevoli.8795:

BTW, I’m not sure how long you hang out at each event area, but a majority of them seem to have multiple stages, followed by an escort mission that takes you to the next “quest” area. So really, each heart area can have up to 4 quests if you just hang out and watch the events unfold rather than running to the next heart.

On one of my alts I rushed through the starter area, going heart to heart completing them, and I was only level 12 by the time I finished the 1-15 area map. On another alt, I stopped and did each event, and the escorts missions, and ended up around level 20 by the time I finished the same map.

I always follow them to their conclusion, it’s a shame to see when people leave at the end of the first collection phase and it’s only me and one other guy that ends up following them back and fighting the whatever gone wrong thing.

I’m gonna make an analogy though as to why no matter how many good things the questing in GW2 has I still considered it the worst I’ve ever seen.

you could make me the greatest cheesecake on the planet, and I LOVE cheesecake but if a dog kittens on it than I’m still gonna have an impossible time enjoying it.

So are you wanting the hearts and things you kill to be lowered in level somewhat so that you can progress without ever being too low level? I suppose the other option is to give more exp per heart completed, but not sure what effects that would have on the game (though it would be easier to implement than the first idea, in my opinion).

I can understand that. Unless I have misunderstood, in which case… I er… I don’t understand that?

In any case, this is the one game I have played where I haven’t felt like I have had to grind for hours on end just to achieve some end goal. I am also pretty big on exploring and LOVE the vista idea. Getting me to stop and look at the world has really made me appreciate it for what it is and I am glad for that. I don’t feel forced. Just like I wouldn’t feel forced to enjoy a nice piece of cake after sampling (and enjoying!) the batter.

“So are you wanting the hearts and things you kill to be lowered in level somewhat so that you can progress without ever being too low level? I suppose the other option is to give more exp per heart completed, but not sure what effects that would have on the game (though it would be easier to implement than the first idea, in my opinion).

I can understand that. Unless I have misunderstood, in which case… I er… I don’t understand that?

In any case, this is the one game I have played where I haven’t felt like I have had to grind for hours on end just to achieve some end goal. I am also pretty big on exploring and LOVE the vista idea. Getting me to stop and look at the world has really made me appreciate it for what it is and I am glad for that. I don’t feel forced. Just like I wouldn’t feel forced to enjoy a nice piece of cake after sampling (and enjoying!) the batter."

that’s pretty much what I’m getting at, and yeah the progression is a little hard to alter without potentially affecting other aspects of the game,

and if you’re into exploration than you’d be hard pressed to find a better questing system, it’s just that as a quester I’m kinda throttled by my progression being slower than the zones progression.

1-15: Queensdale (1-17), Metrica Province, Caledon Forest, Wayfarer Foothills, Plains of Ashford
15-25: Kessex Hills, Brisban Wildlands, Snowden Drifts, Diessa Plateau
25-35: Gendarran Fields, Lornar’s Pass (25-40),
30-40: Fields of Ruin
35-45: Harathi Hinterlands
40-50: Dredgehaunt Cliffs, Blazeridge Steppes
45-55: Bloodtide Coast
50-60: Timberline Falls, Iron Marches
55-65: Sparkfly Fen
60-70: Mount Maelstrom, Fireheart Rise
70-80: Straits of Devastation (70-75), Frostgorge Sound (70-80), Malchor’s Leap (75-80)

How hard is it to find a area for you to explore?